Good news for Prince Harry. The judge allows him to finally take News Group Newspapers (NGN), owner of The Sun and the now-defunct News of The World, to court, considering that the tabloid used illegal methods to gather information about him. This case is expected to reach the British Supreme Court next year.
However, Judge Timothy Fancourt has dismissed the Duke of Sussex’s allegations that he had been wiretapped by the editors of The Sun and the now-defunct tabloid News of the World.
The High Court magistrate has concluded that, in this case, the youngest son of Carlos and Diana could not justify why he waited until 2018 to file a complaint, when allegedly the wiretapping had begun in the mid-1990s. The journalistic group asked the judge in April to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that Enrique had taken more than the required six years to file it.
The judge has considered that the argument put forward by the duke in the preliminary hearings that there was a secret pact between the heads of Rupert Murdoch and the Royal House lacks “credibility”.
At a hearing in London earlier this month, the duke’s legal team said there was evidence to support the deal, including emails between senior executives of the Rupert Murdoch-owned group’s parent companies and palace staff in 2017. and 2018. Enrique said the justification for the secret deal was to avoid putting the royals on the witness stand to listen to embarrassing voicemails intercepted by journalists.
The judge has decided that the part of the lawsuit that alleges that the newspapers resorted to illegal activities “to extract confidential information from third parties” can be judged, with the possible “hiring of private investigators to carry out these and other illegal acts.”
Fancourt believes that, at this point, the duke has a chance to prove in court that, due to lack of sufficient information, he could not have processed his complaint before he did.
A spokesman for NGN has declared the ruling “a significant victory” for the company, as the court dismissed the charges relating to the eavesdropping on mobile voicemail. “This substantially narrows the scope of the claim,” he said in a statement.
The scandal of the massive wiretapping of celebrities, politicians and ordinary people forced Murdoch to close the News of The World in 2011, after the arrest and prosecution of several executives.
The trial against NGN, in addition to others that Enrique has underway against other newspapers over the same matter, is scheduled to begin in London’s High Court next year.
